Why I'm Not Following You.

Woke up this morning to noticeably less Twitter followers.  Wondering what I said to offend so many people, I went back and checked my last tweet.  Can't imagine mentioning my latest blog post on my garden would have caused such an uproar.  And then I notice the Twitter trending topics.  Half of them are regarding cleaning house on Twitter spammers.

Happy to have them gone, actually.  But I have a different approach around here.  And I'm the first to admit I am hardly the Twitter authority.  I've been at this since late October, carefully selecting the 1,702 wonderful people I follow rather than following 15,000 people just because I can.  I read every profile before I choose to follow someone and don't feel obligated to follow those that follow me.  

So who am I?  I am loyal, that's who I am.  I will read your tweets and retweet the ones I really like.  I'll browse your blogs,  check out your website, print out your coupons, consider your business advice and tell my non-twittering friends about your products.  

But I won't follow you if you're doing any of these 10 things:

1. You're naked.  Why are you naked or half dressed in your avatar, by the way?  Go put some clothes on and we'll talk.
2. Expanding on rule number one, your first tweet is telling me to check out your pictures.  Um, yeah, I'm not checking out your pictures.  I have a pretty good idea of what you're doing in them.
3. I check out every profile page before I choose to follow someone.  Look at yours from time to time and see what everyone else is reading.  Ask yourself if you would read what you are writing.  I do this daily (I'm really not all that exciting as it turns out).
4. Are you a constant retweeter?  It's nice you're helping your friends out.  But if all you do is retweet and post links, that gets old fast.  I bet you're more interesting than you think.  Mix it up and let me know what you are doing, too.
5. Do you have a "Get Rich Quick" scheme for me?  Wow, there are so many of you out there!  Glad to hear you are all thriving right now.  Wish you'd all get together and use your skills to solve our economic woes.  Could you do that?  Please.
6. You got nothing.  I mean literally nothing.  Not one tweet.  Why aren't you tweeting?  It scares me what you might say when you do start talking.
7. Are you in the witness protection program?  Then why are you protecting your updates?  I get it if you want to keep your tweets between friends.  I'm cool with privacy.  But don't follow me and think I'm going to ask to read your updates (and I'm betting you have some awesome tweets under that lock and key).
8. Did you just list a new product today?  Good for you!  I love to check out your work and see what you're up to.  If you are tweeting about your product every 5 minutes though, we are going to have problems.
9. Don't tell me too much.  John Mayer got away with it because he was a celebrity.  And for the record, I still follow him.  And no, he doesn't follow me (again, I'm not that interesting).
10. Your twitter name is just a bunch of letters and you've got no avatar.  I don't know what you're up to, but it's not going to be good.  I'm just saying.

What do I like?  I'm a sucker for an inspirational quote, a funny joke, breaking news and I really do like hearing the funny thing your kid did today.  I will be happy for you when you succeed, so I hope you share that too.  I like the twitpics you post, hearing about the conference you're attending.  And thanks so much for letting me know that product I've been eyeing is on sale.  Basically, just like in real life, I like nice, normal people (people in clothes, don't forget the first rule about the naked thing).  

And if you're one of those people, I'd be thrilled to follow you.